


Prodigal

by irrelevant



Series: the skin you're in [1]
Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: I'm An Acrobat!, Identity Porn, M/M, Marcia Loves Cindy, birdboys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:16:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrelevant/pseuds/irrelevant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman and Robin.  Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prodigal

**Author's Note:**

> vaguely current comics continuity.

“Come on,” Dick says. “It’s just for tonight.”

Tim looks down at the suit in his hands, and it’s Dick asking and Robin’s colors, and Tim knows he used to be smarter than this, possibly even this morning.

“Damian?” he says, inquiry, excuse and refusal in one, but Dick just smirks, making him grateful the cowl is pushed back.

“Bruce took him along for the Argentina run. I told him the kid needed some quality father son bonding.” He shrugs. “Guess he believed me.”

Tim knows better than to trust the shrug or Dick’s suspiciously open attitude; there’s nothing he can do about his reaction to the suit. Suits. Either of them. “What else did you tell him?”

“Nothing too specific.”

It never is, not in this family. Conversely, it’s always astonishing how guileless Dick can look when he wants to; or it would be if Tim hadn’t spent almost three quarters of his life learning what makes Richard John Grayson tick, and that’s the clean side of the coin. The other is scarred, and understanding Dick’s expression doesn’t make it any less unnerving.

It… clashes. With the batsuit. Tim briefly imagines Bruce in the batwing’s cockpit, Damian in the copilot’s seat, both of them watching him watch Dick onscreen. He makes a mental note never to do that again.

To his relief, Dick drops the innocent act as fast as he picked it up, although normal Dick isn’t much better than innocent Dick. He bounces impatiently on the balls of his feet (it’s as painful to watch as the faux innocence) and says, “What Cousin Oliver doesn’t know won’t hurt us. You’re not going to make me go out all by myself are you, Cindy?”

He flutters his lashes at Tim; what with the bouncing and the suit he should look ridiculous. He doesn’t. Tim doesn’t know why he’s surprised. He doesn’t know why he’s resisting when resistance is invariably futile.

He rolls his eyes and tries to ignore the corresponding roll of his stomach. Tries even harder to ignore what he’s holding for as long as he can, and it’s never going to be long enough, because. “With incentive like that, how can I say no?” And then he says, “Quit it, Marcia,” because Dick just grabbed on and started squeezing.

Tim’s forehead is pressed against Dick’s clavicle. His voice sounds like it’s coming from a long way away. “You’re crushing the suit. Additionally, I can’t go anywhere if my ribs are fractured.”

He can feel Dick laughing. Can hear the sound bubbling up from Dick’s chest into his throat, and then Dick gives one last squeeze and lets him go.

Dick’s still grinning when Tim shoves back far enough to see his smile, and Tim blinks once in the glare as the carefully reasoned argument he’s been building topples, crumbling into vampire dust in the wake of Dick’s sunlight. The smile gets him every time; he should know that by now, given that his reactions haven’t changed appreciably in that regard since he was four.

“Suit up,” Dick tells him. “I’ll meet you down in there in ten.”

Tim throws one last half-formed, half-hearted argument at him. “I’m not the same size.”

“No kidding.” The odds that Dick _isn’t_ staring at Tim’s ass are so poor as to be in the negative numbers. Tim frowns his disapproval, but Dick’s eyes lift, big and blue and shining, reminding him that Dick lies with the best of them when he needs to. “This is going to be awesome,” he says in the teasing, laughing voice that could and probably has sold atheism to a Pope. “Trust me.”

“I do,” Tim says. “That’s the problem.” He ducks the obligatory hair ruffle and moves reluctantly in the direction of the lockers, trying not to think too hard about what he’s about to do. One more exercise in futility.

He’s in so much trouble.

\--

It fits like it was made for him because it was. Just for him. Tim forces himself to stop estimating how long Dick’s had it sitting around, pulls down the tunic and examines his reflection. Aside from the updated armoring and materials, every detail is exact. The belt is lighter than he remembers, but the catches, the security features are the same.

Fastening it around his waist shouldn’t be so easy.

It shouldn’t feel like the first time.

The cape welcomes him back in, tumbling smooth and black down to his ankles, seamlessly covering up bright green guilt. Tim watches his gauntlets push it back, green on gold framing red, exposing the sharp R inside its circle.

Robin.

It’s not lost on him that Dick picked Tim’s old suit instead of his own. The choice says things about his expectations that Tim doesn’t want to look at closely. Because if he looks harder at Dick’s motives he’ll have to look at his own as well, and then—

Then he’ll have to take off the suit.

The domino is lying on the sink. He picks it up and slides it into place and his hair falls down over it, into his face, all wrong. He’s not wearing blue and black, and there’s no cowl to cover up the excess.

Tim ignores his deepening frown lines as he reaches for the gel. His hair is an easy fix. Barring makeup or a time sphere, there’s nothing he can do about the lines.

\--

Halfway down the stairs he thinks about going back up and putting on the right wrong suit. Actually, he thought about it while he walked from the lockers to the stairs as well, but the second landing is where the stupidity of what he’s doing really hits home because he can see Dick clearly.

The cowl is up and Dick’s back is to him. He drops from the landing down to the floor, eliminating his out, and he’s sure he didn’t make any noise, but Dick turns with preternatural quickness and Tim’s cheek is cupped in the hollow of his gauntlet.

“Robin,” Batman rasps. Batman, not Dick.

Not Bruce, either. Nobody is Bruce but Bruce, not even Batman, and Batman’s substance isn’t determined by just Bruce anymore. He’s transcended Bruce, and he’s standing in front of Tim right now. Which is a lie in that Tim left the building as soon as Batman touched him.

Robin makes a low noise deep in his throat and turns his head, pressing his cheek into Batman’s hand. Batman’s fingers tighten for a fraction of a second, his breath exhales warmly across Robin’s mouth, and then Robin is free and Batman is moving away towards the car. He pauses with his hand on the hatch, looking at Robin over his shoulder. “Bike?”

It’s not a question, really. They both know he’s going to say, “Yes.”

Robin grips his retracted staff, pressing its familiar angles hard against his leg. The cowl shapes Nightwing’s old smile into something alien and feral. “On your right.”

They’ve always favored Ducati. There’s no reason for that to change now.

Robin traces the yellow R with one finger. He smiles as he pulls the helmet on, and it feels as out of place as Batman’s smile looks. The bike purrs to life under his hands and he follows the car out of the bunker, sure for this moment only that he’ll never need to do anything else.

\--

There’s no perfection or goodness in what they do. The mission’s not about either of those things. It’s not really about them, either, but the crack of Robin’s staff against a perp’s skull, the solid slam of Batman’s gauntlet into a banger’s jaw is right in a way nothing else can ever be. The alignment of armored shoulders and hips as they crouch on the extreme edge of a rooftop, waiting for a bunch of drug-dealing dirtbags to get sloppy is better than sex with anyone else.

“I like this,” Batman says, and the thought of Batman liking _anything_ is just—

Great, Robin thinks. Another month of Ünternet dreams is exactly what he needs. He lowers his binoculars, frowning at the crack house across the street instead of Batman. “This, as in a minion who doesn’t talk back?”

For one dragging, appalling second he knows Batman is going to laugh. The classic quirk is a soundless benison, and Batman says, “That too.”

Robin’s mic crackles to life. “You boys done sharing your feelings, or should I call Red Hood in to take out that operation?”

“Ouch,” Batman says. “I think I’m hurt.”

“Sure you are,” Oracle replies. “Don’t think I don’t know whose idea that suit was.”

There’s movement below. Robin raises his binoculars, but it’s just a cat leaping from the top of a dumpster onto a fire escape. “I could have said no,” he tells her, and he doesn’t wince when she laughs, but it’s close. “Please stop.”

“I’ll stop the day you learn _how_ to tell him no. The guy on the north entrance likes sampling the wares and he’s way beyond pink elephants. Now or never, kids.”

Batman stands, reaching for his grapple. “Thanks for the assist.”

“No problem. By the way, R,” she says, “I’d burn that suit if I was you. Oracle out.”

The line goes dead. Batman turns his head just enough for Robin to see his smirk. “She’s probably right.”

Robin rolls his eyes behind his mask. “After tonight, it’ll be your problem, not mine.”

“Who says this is just for tonight?”

“You did.” He knew this was coming. Knew it, he knew—

“I lied,” Batman says, and steps off the roof like he’s stepping down onto the sidewalk, grapple unshot. Robin reaches for his own grapple as he watches him fall.

He makes the cape look like it was designed for triple flips and freefall, and it’s horrifyingly perfect that a Batman who defines joyful, gravity-defying grace can exist in the same time and place as one who embodies terror, justice and a right hook like the wrath of God.

Robin allows himself a very small smile and shoots his line. He knows his limits and he left his death wish on the floor in front of Ra’s al Ghul along with a lot of blood. Batman’s got the big crazy covered. He always has.

It’s nice to know things are back to normal.

\--

His chrono reads 03.39.41 when they pull back into the bunker. He has to get up in less than five hours and it’ll be at least another hour before he sees his room, but regret is for people who don’t know what it means to wear the R.

He followed Batman all night, willingly, and now he follows him up the stairs, tiered rows of lights coming on after them, throwing computers and training equipment into backlit relief. Lights excepted, they’re currently the only thing moving down here, but there’s a covered tray sitting on the evidence table next to the main console, a yellow sticky-note attached.

Batman has to know it’s there; he notices everything. He doesn’t even glance at it, just moves past the console toward the lockers, the cape slithering around him. His hand goes up to the cowl, starts to push it back, and he… stops. Walking and moving. His hand drops to his side and he says, “Robin.”

That’s all the warning he gets. It should be all he needs but he’s caught off guard and off balance, one gauntlet gone, gripped in his still gloved hand, his arms trapped against his sides. Batman’s gauntlet slides up his chest to his throat and lingers, squeezes until he gasps, coughs, and goes limp.

Batman’s breath rims the curve of Robin’s ear. His voice scrapes Robin bare of everything but his mask. “You’re hard,” he’s told, and god, he is.

He’s been halfway there most of the night, the adrenaline-laced hormone cocktail loose in his bloodstream making sure of that. And now Batman’s squeezing again, his throat and his jock, and he’s not almost anymore, he’s arrived, curling over into the ache between his legs and choking on his breath.

His gauntlet drops from his hand with a soft thump. The belt Batman just disarmed and unfastened hits the floor. Robin blinks down at it as one of Batman’s gauntlets lands beside it, and then Batman’s fingers are back on him, peeling his tights and his jock down. He barely has time to feel the wash of cool air over his sweaty skin before Batman’s hand is wrapped around his cock. The noise he makes is one he never thought he’d hear outside his nightmares.

Hard thighs bracket his, braced to take his weight. Batman’s thumb rides the ridge of his cock, smearing pre-come on the downstroke, and Robin bites down hard on his lip. His hands clench spasmodically and catch, tightening on their joined capes.

Slick, almost rubbery, sliding away under his exposed fingers, snagging on his gauntlet’s ridges. He grips hard, and Batman’s breath is a caress all down the side of his neck, pooling around the cape’s collar. “You did good out there tonight,” he says, his voice warm with approval, and Robin jerks and whimpers and comes hot on his bare fingers.

He’s caught as he sags, Batman’s voice underscoring the swelling buzz in his ears. Batman’s arm is the only reason he’s still upright, and Robin leans into it, rests the back of his head against Batman’s shoulder while he breathes through pound of his heart in his throat. He thinks if he opened his eyes he’d see Batman licking his hand clean of his come, and he shudders, still hard enough to feel it.

Careful fingers tug his tights and jock back into place. Batman’s arm tightens and he hears the cowl slide back just before what sounds like the second gauntlet lands on the console. “Tim?” Dick says, almost hesitantly, and then the edges of the domino are damp with aerosol and Robin’s mask is peeling gently away under Dick’s touch.

Tim looks up into Dick’s eyes. He says, “That was unexpected,” and there are other things he intends to say as well but can’t because he’s being kissed.

“Sorry.” Dick’s mouth slides the length of Tim’s cheek, rounds the y down the curve of his chin. “I’m sorry, I just—” He pulls back, smile crooked, fingers lingering on the line of Tim’s jaw. “You were my Robin,” he says. “I didn’t forget. I always thought…” His thumb hesitates on the corner of Tim’s mouth— “I thought if the worst happened, it’d be you and me.”

Getting what he needs half a year after he stopped needing it isn’t as bad as Tim would have thought if he’d allowed himself to think about it. It’s better than never getting it at all.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says and he drops and shoves, he sends Dick sprawling towards the console. He’s back up immediately, following in Dick’s staggered wake. Stripping off his other gauntlet and dropping it down to join the others. Trapping Dick between himself and the chair.

Dick is laughing, a known, needed sound. He drops into the chair and splays himself there, arms and legs spread over the cape’s spill, the bats crouched on his chest and hips brooding at Tim. “I’m right here,” he says, holding out his hands, and he’s done everything but tell Tim to come and get him.

Bruce’s bat resists, struggling against Tim’s determination, but he flicks the belt open and tugs it away and he’s on his knees between Dick’s legs, looking up at him. He’s glad the cowl is off. He needs to see Dick’s face for this. He needs to know—

“Tim.” Hands cupping his face and Dick’s eyes, laughing and sure. “C’mere,” he says, and leans in. Tim meets him halfway.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if this is Dick’s way of making things up to him; it would be just like him to do something this heedlessly physical in the wake of the last seven hours. He doesn’t know how he’s going to be able to look at Dick without thinking about Dick kissing him like he flies, throwing himself over the edge into freefall and taking Tim along for the ride.

He doesn’t know and right now he doesn’t care. Because he just pulled the last fastening free and now he’s pulling Dick’s leggings and jock away.

At first, he only looks. He wants to remember everything about this. Hard muscle tensed into stone under his hands, sweat and pre-come wet on Dick’s face and the tip of his cock and the heat-released smell Tim knows from a million sparring sessions.

“Tim,” Dick says. “Timmy.” His hands come up, his fingers tangle in Tim’s hair, and Tim leans down and licks.

Pre-come, human bitter, and salty skin. Tim licks away the salt and the slick. He draws a line down the divide of Dick’s balls with his thumbnail and listens to Dick whining his name. He presses in and up with two fingers and there’s another whine and more pre-come beading the slit. This isn’t going to take long.

“Don’t move,” he says, his lips barely brushing the head. He licks again, presses, and while Dick is babbling _Tim, yes, god, anything just_ he opens his mouth and sucks him in.

Dick’s groan is background to the white noise in Tim’s head, and that’s a good thing. Tim needs the blank buzz so he won’t hear Bruce’s voice telling him how to relax his throat for a very different purpose than the one he’s presently using the information for. It helps that Dick’s fingers are in his hair, pulling, hurting him just enough. Tim breathes through his nose, breathes in Dick, full of him everywhere, and Dick gasps and goes rigid, all the way inside Tim.

Tim closes his eyes and breathes some more. He’s… ridiculously open. Filled and exposed and trapped between Dick’s hands and cock, and he wants to swallow, he wants to run, he wants Dick to keep making noise so he'll know he’s doing this right.

“Oh Jesus,” Dick groans. “Tim, I can’t—need to—”

Dick needs. It’s enough.

Tim strokes with his fingers and his tongue and his throat. A hurt, broken sound is torn from Dick’s throat. He comes, he says, “ _Robin,_ ” and Tim knows he’s done everything right.

He opens his eyes before he does anything else and Dick’s face is the first thing he sees, relaxed and smiling. “I’d ask you where you learned to do that,” he says. “But I don’t think I want to know.”

Tim pulls slowly off of him, swallowing mingled saliva and semen as he goes, wiping what he can’t swallow away with the back of his hand. When his mouth is empty he swallows again, testing his throat for damage. It’s slightly sore, no worse than it would be after a night of shouting orders at Kon and Bart. He sits back on his heels and examines his victim. Dick’s a beautiful mess: tights askew, mouth blurry, hair everywhere.

“You look debauched,” Tim says. “And you’re right. You don’t want to know.”

The curl of Dick’s hand around Tim’s cheek is as good as a laugh. His index finger tracks the curve of Tim’s lower lip. “You have an amazing mouth, little brother,” he says, and Tim strangles on a weird combination of disbelief and laughter. Which is par for the course because god, _Dick_.

“Could you not call me that right now?” he says when he’s sure he’s not going to break his brain or his voice. “That’s just… wrong. Even for you.”

Dick laughs and ruffles some of the gel out of Tim’s hair. He presses gently down on Tim’s head until Tim’s cheek is resting on his leg.

Tim closes his eyes and breathes in the suit’s leathery chemical odors, and Dick’s heat underneath. He’s more than half hard again, without any pressing need to come. He doesn’t really want to, at least not yet, and given that Dick is, well, Dick, he knows he’ll get at least one more shot at orgasm before he falls asleep. Probably several more after he wakes up.

Light touch on the side of his neck, feathering his temple and ear: Dick’s hand is back in his hair, finger-combing the last of the gel out of it. “Are we doing this?”

He shifts, propping his chin on Dick’s thigh while he considers the question. “Yes,” he says when Dick’s leg and hand start to feel as tense as the silence. “I think so.”

Dick’s fingers spasm, curling tight enough to make Tim’s eyes water. Tim doesn’t protest. He doesn’t move and eventually Dick relaxes, his fingers moving again, long sweeps up Tim’s scalp and down his neck, smoothing away the sting. “Less thinking, more doing.”

Tim snorts, but he puts his head back down, following orders. Good soldier, he thinks, and manages not to laugh.

He’s half asleep, his head still in Dick’s lap, before either of them speaks again. He’s about to suggest they get a shower and take this upstairs when Dick says, “We’ve got three days.”

It could be a non sequitur. This _is_ Dick.

Tim lifts his head and looks up into Dick’s laughing eyes. He says, “Not a good idea,” and watches the dimple in Dick’s left cheek deepen.

“We’re in a bunker full of cutting edge tech we use to spy on the world. We wear capes and masks every night and hurt bad people for kicks. What part of any of that says good idea?”

Tim’s smile feels Alfred dry, Bruce wry, and Barbara everywhere in between. “Point.” And it is, but. “Do you really want to do anything else?”

Dick’s laughter is the best kind of permission. Tim takes it as read. He curls to his feet and offers his hand, and of course Dick cheats, he uses it to pull Tim back down into his lap.

Tim hooks his feet over the insides of Dick’s knees, straddling his thighs to keep from tumbling off. “Extremely bad idea,” he says, but Dick’s hand is on the back of his neck, Dick’s smile brushes his lips, and Tim forgets why in the slide of Dick’s tongue into his mouth and Dick’s hands down to his ass.

“Note to self,” Dick murmurs against Tim’s mouth. “Swapping spit derails even Tim’s brain. Repeat process often.” He nips Tim’s lower lip, squeezes Tim’s ass with both hands and Tim drops his head on his shoulder and laughs helplessly.

“You know, you’re pretty cute when you do that.” Dick licks the side of his neck.

“Do what?” Tim sucks in a startled breath and then Dick sucks the place he licked and the breath goes away on a gasp.

“Smile,” Dick says with what sounds like way too much satisfaction. “Duh.”

He hides it in the crook of Dick’s neck and contemplates biting him. Hard. “Batman doesn’t say duh.”

“Does so.”

“Does not.”

“So.”

“Not.”

“Whatever,” Dick concedes. “I forgot I was talking to the president of Batman and Robin stalkers anonymous.”

“Senility must be setting in.” Tim can’t feel his smile anymore, so it has to be safe enough to lift his head. That’s what he thinks until Dick looks warily back at him.

“Okay, see, the other smile was cute innocent Timmy. It makes gullible people want to snuggle you. _That_ smile is why everyone else knows better.”

Tim slides his hands up Dick’s chest to his shoulders and digs in. “So what does that make you?”

Dick’s grin flares into brilliance. “Exception to the rule, kiddo,” he says, and Tim kisses him. There are other ways of dealing with Dick when he’s being insufferably smug, but his mouth is right there and Tim isn’t awake enough for indignation. Also, some bombs are better dropped when the target isn’t thinking straight.

“Three days,” Tim says as Dick hooks his fingers into the waist of Tim’s leggings. “I’ll do it if I have company.”

Dick’s pupils are blown. His mouth is three days’ worth of black and blue acrobatics and no thinking whatsoever. “What?” he says, and blinks, completely focused on Tim’s mouth. “What?”

Tim braces a hand against the back of the chair and leans in until his mouth is almost touching Dick’s ear. “I like capes, but you don’t need one.” He bites Dick’s earlobe and Dick whines when he lets go, both their gazes sliding sideways toward the lockers. There are several not currently in use. That doesn’t mean they’re empty.

“Bad idea,” Dick mumbles, but his fingers are busy on the tunic, working it open. Trailing back and forth over the raised R. He’s hard and getting harder, slicker in Tim’s hand.

“I told you so,” Tim sing-songs. It’s probably just as well Dick doesn’t give him the chance to say anything else.

**Author's Note:**

> this now [has a sequel](http://archiveofourown.org/works/237869).


End file.
